Are chickpeas everyone’s favourite pulse, or just the one they are most familiar and comfortable with? Do you stock up to make the nations favourite dip, hummus? Or do you make curry, soup or add them to a salad? The chickpea is indispensable, especially now when some days, despite all the time, we require something quick and nourishing with little effort but lots of flavour. This is a plate of sunshine.

Use tinned chickpeas, or home-cooked. Whatever you have. Take the sharp edge of the red onion by letting it sit in the lemon juice for 10 minutes before dressing the chickpeas. Use whatever herbs you have, basil, oregano, parsley would all work very well too. Lime juice would be lovely here but if you have no fresh citrus, use vinegar (any except malt vinegar which would be too harsh). Taste as you go, and enjoy the results. Continue reading

Well hello darker evenings. How is it that you always descend so quickly? We bounce from summer to chilly to dark in a matter of weeks. I do love the seasons but this time of year requires care and adjustment. I feel like I have the hibernation instinct of a bear. All I want to do is cook and eat (well, always I know but more so!). With the best of the season that usually means a cosy collection of soups front of centre.

I love a pumpkin, that isn’t new. Within the pumpkin (and squash!) family there is much to explore. I have a few favourites, at this time of year Crown Prince Squash and Delicata Squash are two favourites. Today we are going to talk about Crown Prince. With rich dense orange flesh and a deep flavour it is the perfect starting point for many things. Pancakes, waffles, soups, stews, pilaf, gnocchi. You name it, I have probably made it with Crown Prince Squash recently.

Who doesn’t love pumpkin soup?

Today I am going to share this simple recipe for Crown Prince Squash, Ginger and Coriander Soup with you. It is so bright and full flavoured. As much as coconut milk loves this squash, I dar say as much as I do, I only add it on the top allowing the squash to shine in the soup. Continue reading

I was looking after my friends cat last week in Dublin. The sweetest little cat. I kept her well fed, but it won’t surprise you to hear that I love to feed people even more. When my friend was on her way back from the airport I asked her if she would like some dal pancakes. She replied: I have never had them, sounds good! My reply: well you won’t have, I am just making them from leftover dal, but they are very good! Dal pancakes are sheer joy. Fluffy like an American pancake, and shaped just so too. But made of leftover dal and tasting gently of it, with coconut milk, an egg, self raising flour and salt, and just that.

Cooking for comfort

After weeks of travelling and lots of eating out, I craved simplicity once I had a kitchen again. Not my kitchen, but my friends kitchen in Dublin, and so I kept it simpler again. I wanted dal, dumplings, I wanted an excellent steak. Pasta loomed large on my culinary horizon. I went overboard on my first day in the local shop. The second day too. Then as I wandered, as I do, I discovered a Chinese shop and an Indian shop. I stocked up on spices and dumpling wrappers and sauces. I went too far, I always do and I arrived at my sisters house after Dublin with a collection of herb plants and half a pantry. Continue reading

What do you think of cold soups? Some people absolutely rage against them, don’t they? But they can be so good. Gazpacho? CHECK. Aja Blanco? Hells YES. That delicious confection of almonds, raw garlic, extra virgin olive oil and sherry vinegar, with green grapes halved on top to finish. And of course, vichyssoise, aka wonderful leek and potato soup. We usually eat it hot here, but the tradition in France is to have it cold and it is gorgeous.

It isn’t hot I know, at least it feels cool at 22 deg C with a breeze. My internal thermostat was forever reset by those days early in the summer in the mid 30’s and a few days over 40 in Ottawa in June. Yet, I wanted something cooling, and my friend, who is ill with a poorly intestine did too.

Socca is a wonderful thing. So easy to make, and very delicious. Using chickpea flour it is also gluten free. This recipe whisks me back to Nice, to a summer there when I was 19. It was only my second summer away from Ireland, my first trip abroad ever I had spent on a farm outside an idyllic looking English village outside Canterbury picking apples. I say summer, it was 3 weeks and a brief trip to London after, but it allowed me to peek at the possibilities available to me and dream of a travel filled future. The following year, after 1 year in university, I headed to Nice for the summer.

Nice was a whole different thing. I lived in a small studio apartment not far off the Promenade des Anglais (a boulevard bridging the city and the bright blue sea). I worked in a market in the evening, wandering during the days, loitering in bookshops and anywhere I found interesting. I read biology texts in French to try and develop my language skills (I was studying for my degree in Biology at the time). I read and I walked and I swam in the salty Mediterranean Sea. I burned my feet on the stones on the beach and I jumped from one stone to another to reach the sea before discovering that I would be spectacularly out of my depth after a couple of feet. I worked from 5 until midnight every day, every week, and then I went for pizza most days with friends that I had made there after we finished. I discovered jugs of rosé, pizza with thin gorgeous ham and bottles of chilli oil hiding sprigs of rosemary and dried chillies. Continue reading

Dal, that gorgeous spiced lentil soup, is one of those dishes that I revert to on a cold day outside. When I want something full flavoured that requires little attention, something that I can make a big batch of, and eat for the next couple of days, treasuring every bowl. It is also one of the most frugal bowls of food that you can eat. Just pulses, water and spice and some garlic. In season, I add chopped tomato too. If I have it in the fridge, I will add some fresh coriander. Curry leaves are wonderful with dal too, fried a little with the spices. Dal is one of the dishes that I make when I don’t have the time or the inclination to get to the shop, so I work with what I have. To make a meal of it, I add a boiled egg on top, better still gorgeous perky quails eggs, boiled until just set with the yolks still soft.

I use moong dal for this, occasionally chana dal. I prefer moong dal as it is mushier when cooked, whereas chana dal tends to hold its shape. A combination of the two works well too. This time I added some pumpkin, well a kabocha squash to be precise. I love the rich deeply flavoured orange flesh, and the gentle creamy texture it acquires when cooked through. Some coconut milk gives it a layer of richness and mellows it out.

Cover the dal and pumpkin with water in a sauce pan, ensuring that the water covers the dal to an inch higher than it. Add the turmeric and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow the dal to simmer gently. It will take about 20 – 25 minutes to cook. Top up with water if you need to, a little at a time.

About 10 minutes in, toast the cumin seeds in a dry hot pan for about a minute. Grind in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in the frying pan and add the garlic and chilli for a minute. Then add the ground cumin and mustard seeds and fry for a couple of minutes. Turn the heat off.

When the dal is almost tender, add the coconut milk and stir through. Allow to cook further. When the dal is tender it is ready. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. The black pepper is important as it enhances the absorption of curcumin in turmeric, which is a natural powerful anti-inflammatory agent and anti-oxidant. It tastes good too.

Serve the dal with a teaspoon of the spices and garlic (and some extra chilli too if you like, fry it first). Garnish with whatever else you fancy as per the blurb at the top.

I love me some beans, I can’t get enough of them. It shocks people often to discover that I used to be vegetarian (WHAT?!), but you know, I was worried about industrial farming (I still am), and my degree studies were in physiology, including anatomy, which involved human dissection. Yes, HUMAN dissection. I went home one evening after an anatomy dissection, cooked some chicken and thought that it all looked too similar, the flesh and the fibres (sorry, but it is true), my stomach turned and that was that, for a long while. Then as the farmers market movement took hold properly, and people and even supermarkets started to become more concerned about meat and meat sourcing, I came back on board.

These years of vegetarianism taught me a lot. I explored pulses, vegetables, herbs and spice. I learned how to add flavour without adding meat, and I resurrected my university nutrition studies to ensure that I was eating nutritionally balanced meals. I studied more, I learned about new and exciting ways that I could eat. I devoured cookbooks, I obsessively read online. I fell in love with pulses, completely. All sorts of beans and lentils, I would fill my suitcase with bean shaped curiosities from everywhere that I travelled and bring them home.

One place I have yet to travel to is Egypt, but I have explored the food in London and in my own kitchen. One of my favourite discoveries when I first moved to London was the wonder of a bowl of ful medames (always spelled in a myriad of ways like dal|dahl|dhal!), a beautiful breakfast dish of small ful beans (dried baby broad beans), gently spiced and cooked for hours with garlic and eggs boiled within, which are served on top. I used to eat it all the time and made it my mission to perfect it at home. I think I feel a post coming on!

Dried broad beans are a superb ingredient. I loved how they cook them in Puglia, until soft and served as a gorgeous dip rich with local olive oil and mountain oregano, ripe for you to drag some crusty bread through. I brought lots home, but I buy them in local Turkish shops too. Jane Baxter, the originator of this falafel recipe, highly recommends British grown organic beans from Hodmedods, who sell them online too. You need these unassuming beans in your life, I promise you.

Which leads me on to what exactly an Egyptian falafel is. It is a falafel shaped from broad beans with spices, herbs and other joy, coated with sesame seeds. A lovely alternative to the chickpea falafel we all know so well. The falafel recipe is adapted from Jane Baxter & Henry Dimbleby, and it has a lovely story associated too (see after the recipe).

Have you got a favourite falafel recipe or story? I have many! I used to live on them when I was fresh out of university and living in Amsterdam. Another day for those, but tell me yours!

Prepare your sides first. For the cauliflower, heat a tablespoon of oil and fry the spices in it. Toss the cauliflower in this for just a couple of minutes then season with salt and leave to the side to cool. For the carrot, simply mix the sesame seed and fresh coriander leaves in (it makes such a flavour difference, it is hard to believe!). Prepare your tahini lemon dressing by whisking everything together and adjusting to taste. It will start thing and grainy but comes together quickly, so don't worry if it looks weird, it will.

Make your falafel. Drain the split fava beans well in a sieve or colander. Tip them into a food processor, along with the rest of the falafel ingredients, except for the sesame seeds. Blitz the ingredients to a rough paste and tip it out on to a clean surface.

I have a little falafel press that I bought in a Turkish food shop which shaped 24 small falafels. I recommend getting your paws on one of these if you can as it just makes it easier. Otherwise, follow Jane's instructions: divide the mixture into 12-16 pieces, each about the size of a small golf ball. Press them down with your fingers to make small patties.

Sprinkle around 3 tbsp sesame seeds on to a plate and coat each side of the falafels roughly with the seeds. Transfer them to the fridge for at least 10 minutes.

To cook the falafel, fill a small pan with oil to a depth of about 3cm. Heat the oil – it will be ready when a piece of bread dropped in sizzles and turns brown quickly. Turn the heat down and start to cook the falafel in batches. I cooked mine 6 at a time and kept them warm on a baking tray in a low oven. Cook each side for 2-3 minutes, or until it is golden brown then flip them over and fry the other side.

One for the veggies? No! One for all of us. This was one of those things that came together randomly in a helter skelter way, and I am so glad that it did.

When I was in France recently I bought some dried chickpeas from a farmer at the market. I cooked half of them last week, and they were so lovely. Great texture and taste, and even though they were dried, they were fresh, if you know what I mean? The cooked until plump and with bite. I was thrilled with them and saved the rest of my stash for this week. Continue reading

Sometimes the world is with you, and sometimes it is not. Equally sometimes your fridge is with you, and sometimes it is not. Sometimes your fridge can be a nasty twisted beast. Last week when I came home from France to discover that my fridge had been off all weekend, well that was a moment where my fridge was being a poison troll. Today, when I shuffled through it and put together the makings of lunch, it was definitely trying to make amends.

In university a friend used to call me MacGyver, not because I sported an awesome mullet or because I had impressive skills where I could construct something brilliant, unexpected and absolutely required at that instant in time with just a piece of chewing gum and any-other-thing, but because she believed that I could tackle a kitchen with hardly anything in it and make something good to eat. I have always loved a cupboard forage and it is exactly this MacGyver skill level that brought lunch to my door this lunchtime. Continue reading

I woke this morning feeling so tired but quite chirpy. I want to start the week well. It could be that spring is coming and I can feel it in my bones, and see it in the sky. Maybe it is the lovely weekend that I just spent in Lapland, the people I met, and the huskies, reindeer and general gorgeousness. Lately, I am increasingly aware of time, how precious it is, and how much I want to do. Our lives are in our hands, right? It sounds so simple, but like all simple things, it can be difficult to realise and implement.

The last 18 months have presented many challenges and I have felt overwhelmed and swept away at times. My Dad passing away, of course, this takes time to absorb and heal. The mammoth project that Project: Bacon turned out to be (my bacon opus is nearly there now, I am very pleased to reveal), and my responsibilities to my wonderful backers has been a huge part of this. I feel each disappointment keenly as they wait and I am further delayed. Life can kick and tease but it can also take your hand and dance with you. I want to do more dancing, and in colour. Continue reading

Regular readers and fellow twitterers will know that I am a big fan of pork belly! An inexpensive but delicious cut of meat, that is transformed into a thing of crispy wonder when given the right amount of care and attention. Spiced with star anise or sweetened with cider and sporting a crispy coat of crackling, it is one of my favourite things to eat in this world.

So, you can imagine my delight when a restaurant local to work started serving pork belly sandwiches at lunch time. Not just any restaurant either, but Oliver Rowe’s Konstam at the Price Albert, a restaurant where most of the produce (where possible) is sourced from within the M25. Many of you will be familiar with it from the TV show, The Urban Chef, that tracked the setup and opening of this fine establishment.

Prior to opening Konstam at the Prince Albert, Oliver ran a cafe of the same name (Konstam). of which I was a big fan and I was disappointed when it closed in favour of the restaurant. Not that I don’t appreciate the fine dining options on offer there, it’s simply not in my price range for a regular lunch. The new lunch menu is of a similar ilk to the old cafe. It changes regularly and features the finest sandwiches including my favourite hot roast pork belly, remoulade and parseley sandwich; chicken and dill mayonnaise; roast winter squash marjoram and lemon; Quicke’s cheddar, marrow chutney and mizuna and many more. The salads are wonderful, fresh, vibrant and dressed beautifully and the soups are packed with flavour and colour e.g Hillingdon beetroot and vodka soup with sour cream and roast butternut soup with Norbury blue & walnuts. There are also more traditional main courses at normal a la carte prices like pan roast Mersea sea bass, jerusalem artichoke pierogi, slow-cooked shoulder of Amersham mutton and braised Amersham pheasant legs.

Most of the menu is available for take away and I really can’t recommend it enough. It takes a little longer than your average sandwich but that’s because it’s not your average sandwich and it’s an absolute pleasure to watch the chef take the enormous pork belly out of the oven and cut your bit, placing it tenderly between two slices of sourdough, caressed by remoulade and tickled by parsley. The delicate flesh and the crispy crackling, with the fat seeping into the bread. Sounds wrong but it’s oh-so-right. Oh god, I want one now.

I’ve tried a number of dishes and the food, as a rule, is delicious and freshly made while you wait. If you don’t believe me, they were featured in the Time Out lunch feature last week, which reminded me, that I should really blog about the wonder that is the Konstam pork belly sandwich.

So, if you’re in London, try it out! I doubt you’ll be disappointed, I’ve dragged most of my friends there by now and they’re in agreement with me. If you’re not in London, I recommend you try a homemade version for a winter lunch. It’s medicinal and food for the soul and will get you through these next dark days leading to the Winter solstice.

This has been a great couple of weeks for festivities. Diwali, Halloween, Day of the Dead last week, and Guy Fawkes coming up. It certainly takes the bite out of the impending Winter!

I always like to celebrate anything like this with food if I can, hey, I don’t need an excuse I know, even if it’s just for me, or, better again with friends. Last week was busy but I did sneak in a dish that would in some way cover Diwali and Halloween, well, kind of.

Diwali being a Hindu festival is all about vegetarian food, particularly curry, snacks and sweets. As for Halloween, well, Halloween is about spooks and scary things, but also pumpkins, so I thought, why not make a veggie curry with pumpkin in? Or, in this case, butternut squash.

I had an ulterior motive, I felt I needed a few veggie days, or veggie meals at least. I usually have quite a balanced diet but lately I’ve been buying lunch out alot more than usual, and as I work so near to delicious Brindisa, my diet has been leaning heavily on the meat side. So, beans, veg, tomato and coconut seemed like a good alternative to a chorizo stew!

It’s very easy and very light. I made this on a weekday evening and it was absolutely manageable. The measurements are loose as always, feel free to experiment, it’s more about the spices and the flavours in the sauce. I used a small butternut squash about 6-8 inches high. The spice blend is very basic. I just used what I had in my cupboard. It works, though!

This will serve 4. I served it with steamed basmati rice. It keeps well, indeed like most tomato based dishes, tastes better the next day. Continue reading

Today’s recipe is ditalini with fresh borlotti beans, rosemary & tomato – a twist on Pasta e Fagioli that I made for lunch today. I’m a girl with an eye for detail, at least when it comes to food (for you friends reading, shocked that I typed that! ;)). I didn’t want to blog pasta e fagioli yet, because I wanted to make sure that the one I eventually blog is traditional, accurate and painstakingly researched. I am almost there, but not quite. So, instead, I will blog part of the research towards that goal and call it ditalini with fresh borlotti beans, rosemary & tomato. It’s a vegetarian version, intentionally, I wanted something with clean, crisp flavours, light & fruity and healthy.

So, how to go about this? Spend a Sunday morning wandering around the food halls of London, unintentionally picking up the ingredients. Beautiful big red tomatoes of the type you would see in the mediteranean, fresh borlotti beans in their pink stripey pods, bursting to come out, ditalini pasta, shallots, garlic & some fresh rosemary from the garden. The flavours are simple and therefore very important that they are right, so good tomatoes are essential, but you could substitute the beans if you can’t get fresh borlotti – dried or tinned borlotti, or cannelini. The fresh ones are so plump and tender, it’s worth trying to find them. They also cook in the dish, imparting their goodness to the finished dish. I cook the beans first with herbs and garlic to add more flavour, but keep the water the beans were cooked in and use it to add to the stock (keeping it withinn 600ml). For the pasta, ff you can’t get ditalini, any small tubular pasta will do, try macaroni. The finished dish looks bland and drained of colour, but, I promise, it’s bursting with flavour and worth a go.

I am using pumpkin alot lately, I know. They’re in season, so I like to make the most of them. I love everything about them, the way they look and taste, their bright orange colour, I (clearly) just can’t get enough. I love just having them on my kitchen windsill, brightening the place up. Yes, sad, I know.

I try to bring a homemade lunch to work every day but, lately, I’ve been lax. I find the change in seasons breaks my routine, which is no bad thing, but it’s time to get my house in order again. Often, it’s leftovers from dinner the night before but, sometimes, I make something especially for lunch as the repetition can get tedious.

Anna Pickard recently made a suggested dish of mine in her “Out of my box” post on the Word of Mouth blog, and I laughed so hard at her description of it, as it’s so true of how I eat in November:

The rest was dedicated to Niamheen and herRice and Chorizo and Squash thing. I’m sure the proper term is not ‘thing’, but it was very yummy. And possibly the most filling thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. Seriously, it was like eating insulation. But in a good way.

It’s the perfect description, and really, it’s amazing that I am not shaped like a ball. I think that I eat this way, as, when I was vegetarian (for 11 years), I was extremely conscious of nutrition and ensuring that I had a balanced diet that I often mixed grains, pulses and veg. I still do, only now I stick meat in also.

So, I thought that I might attempt a lighter, lunch friendly version without the chorizo. Israeli couscous is great, larger than normal couscous and more tender, like eating little rubber balls, even though that doesn’t sound remotely appetising, it is! You can get it in the kosher section of supermarkets or middle eastern shops usually. If you can’t get any, you could replace with cracked wheat, bulgar or brown rice. I like to add a contrast, usually seeds or nuts, and lots of flavour as it’s quite bland, so some spices, in this instance spanish paprika. I cooked off a batch of haricot beans at the weekend so have had them every day this week (can’t look at one for at least a month now), so I included these, but other white beans will do well here, cannelini or butter beans, for example. Also, the onion squash is not absolutely necessary, any pumpkin/squash would fit. Eats well hot or cold.

The quantities are a bit vague, as I was using left over bits of squash and handfuls of this and that, use this just as a guide and add more of whatever you prefer, I might add more beans if I was making it again. but then, we are heading into insulation territory… Continue reading

I love Lebanese food. The flavours are so fresh and lively, and the meze style eating is varied and so sociable. London is awash with great Lebanese restaurants, particularly around the Edgware Rd area. They’re great places to bring vegetarian friends as there is plenty to satisfy everyone from the vegan to the carnivore.

The Maroush chain of restaurants in London have a deli on the Edgware Rd, where I used to treat myself to moutabal when I lived in nearby Kilburn, a smoky aubergine dip, not unlike baba ghanoush from Egypt. I frequently make dips like guacamole, hummus and pesto but infrequently moutabal as I didn’t have a gas cooker in my last flat, so I decided that now that I have, I should make it last weekend.

To make moutabal you need to grill some aubergines over a gas flame until the skin is burned and the flesh is hot. The aubergine will be very hot so, take care, and ensure you don’t burn yourself as I did. I have previously made this by roasting the whole aubergine in the oven, so do it this way if you don’t have gas. The results will be good but you won’t get the smoky flavour that you get using the gas flame. Take care not to use too much tahini as it can dominate the dish, I add 2 tbsp usually, but taste as you go, as sometimes it needs a bit more or less. Some recipes use garlic but traditional ones I’ve spied often don’t, so I made it without. I think I would add a clove next time as I love the taste of garlic. Anyone know if it should be in there or not?

Happy Halloween! I love festive occasions, any excuse for a bit of fun and a party. Halloween was one of my favourites as a child. We were always on mid term break and so had ample time to fashion costumes, from, *cough*, the most humble of substances. Witches costume from a refuse sack? No problem! I blame Bosco (all you Irish readers can nod your head).

Pumpkins were never something we could get our hands on in the wilds of Waterford, so we use to raid the local sugar beet fields and fashion jack-o-lanterns out of them. I wish I could communicate using words the foul stench of burning sugar beet, but we persevered and carried them from house to house. There was a big band of siblings, cousins and neighbours that would march for a mile or so, stopping at the sporadic houses, singing in 3 parts everything we knew – stuff from TV (yes, Bosco), school, church, you name it. We didn’t want monkey nuts, we despised them, just money or sweets please, thank you very much. It’s a wonder they answered the door to the refuse sack clad, sugar beet wielding, singing children on a dark and cold Halloween night!

So, what did we eat? Sweets, lots of them. I’ve kept up that tradition here today, I’ve eaten way too many jelly snakes and percy pigs, but it had to be done. There was also apple bobbing, and putting a grape on top of a pile of flour and nudging the flour without knocking the grape… and lots more I can’t remember now. Certainly not pumpkin anyway, but as an adult, I eat alot of it this time of year and today is one of those days.

So, criteria for a halloween dish? Preferably pumpkin-y, should be spicy, and orange would be good (pumpkin helps!). I am not at home tonight so settled on a halloween lunch of pumpkin and celeriac soup with chilli which I made last night for today.

Pumpkin & Celeriac are a great match. Both really good for you too, pumpkins are full of beta-carotene, potassium, vitamin C, calcium and fiber and celeriac is rich in vitamin C, phosphorus & potassium. Their texture in soups is wonderful, so smooth. Chilli is great with pumpkin, it livens the flavour and adds that spice we want. Any pumpkin or squash will work, preferably an orange fleshed one, butternut squash, onion squash or pumpkin are great. I add red split lentils to thicken the soup and to provide some protein, garlic and onions as a base, and some good light stock, vegetable or chicken are great. This is a really quick soup and takes care of itself as most soups do. I am a bit greedy when it comes to soup and am like a pig at the trough swilling bowl after bowl, so, it’s difficult to estimate portion sizes but I would think that this would serve 6 normal people.

Summer is here! At long last! Sun, sandals, walks along the South Bank, maybe even some picnics. And last night a bright summery soup. This soup is so bright and cheerful, a twist on my usual carrot & orange inspired by an indian dal. I toyed with the idea of adding a tarka (spices tempered in oil added to a dal before serving) but decided the simpler and lighter the better. Lemon and coriander work so well together, as do carrots & coriander so I thought this should work, and it did. I like lemon, but I don’t like it to overpower so I added just a couple of tablespoons, you may want to add more or less – I suggest you do to taste.

Sauté the leeks for a good ten minutes or so over a low heat.
Add the carrots, I like to sauté these for as long as possible to intensify the flavour, 10 minutes would do but I left them there for 30, sweating away with an occasional stir.
Add your stock and lentils, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the coriander and púree. Season to taste with S&P and add the lemon juice to taste.

Following on from yesterdays post -Wild salmon with samphire, broad bean & tomato salad and crisp sauté new potatoes, I have another samphire post. This one is vegetarian and is based on the salad recipe from yesterdays post. I was looking at the 100g of samphire that I had left and wondering what I could do with it that would be tasty and suitable for lunch the next day. A quick fumble in the cupboard revealed a forgotten bag of organic bulgur. Bulgur is very healthy, it’s more nutritious than rice or cous cous so I always have a bag to hand next to the quinoa. There’s lots of forgotten random bits in my cupboards, it’s like a bunker in there! I have promised myself that I will empty them over the coming months and base my recipes on what’s in there so it should be interesting.

For the samphire, I decided on a chunky samphire tabbouleh. I love tabbouleh, it’s so light and fragrant but can take really robust flavours. I decided that I would use the samphire in place of the herbs and rather than finely chopping the tomatoes, leave them in quarters as the tomatoes I have at the moment deserve prominence in this dish. This is very quick (except for double podding the broad beans but you could probably substitute with peas if you’re in a rush). The bulgur that I used was the medium type but you could use fine if you have it. My favourite tabboulehs are ones that have only the smallest amount of bulgur and are mainly green, like a lebanese tabbouleh, so I was aiming to recreate this. This one was new so there was a little bit of trial and error in the proportions.

I haven’t been feeling very well recently so haven’t been cooking. Today I started again with something very gentle, almost medicinal, a really tasty courgette and sweetcorn soup. Both main ingredients are reasonably delicate and result in quite a creamy soup which is a pleasure to eat and perfect for tender tums. It’s also seasonal so the ingredients are at their best having grown naturally. I have a really lovely book which I have had for over 10 years and which has travelled with me from Ireland to London and through my many house moves since – The Kitchen Pharmacy by Rose Eliott & Carlo de Pauli. Both authors have great credentials, Rose Eliot is a renowned vegetarian food writer and Carol de Pauli is the Principal of the Institute of Traditional Herbal Medicine & Aromatherapy and the Director of the British and European Osteopathic Association. Their book associates specific foods with ailments and offers recipes for these which if nothing else provide comfort. You are what you eat, a cliché but so true. For a few years, if this were explicitly true, I was in danger of turning into a bag of crisps!

Having already decided to buy a big bag of courgettes at the market I decided I’d take a look at the Kitchen Pharmacy and see how courgettes might benefit me and, sure enough, they have cooling, anti-inflammatory and anti-spasmodic properties in your intestine which makes perfect sense considering that I am recovering from a nasty intestinal infection. Your body does remember foods and other ingested items and what it likes and it doesn’t like. I think my poor tum remembered how nice courgettes were to it before and requested them. Incidentally, this is why, sometimes when something doesn’t agree with you you find out the second time you eat it not the first. I was once a physiologist (I have a degree in physiology) and know this to be true but to my shame the precise scientific detail escapes me now. Continue reading

Or, for me, they’re pretend it’s summer rolls. It’s Saturday and I am sitting in my flat looking at the pouring rain. I can’t bring myself to go outside, it’s too grim. I need to make something to lift my spirits that doesn’t require leaving the house. Something vietnamese would be nice, it’s been a while since I’ve made any vietnamese food and it reminds me of a lovely holiday I spent in Sydney last year with two old friends. A quick stocktake reveals rice paper, bean sprouts, rice vermicelli, chillis, a green pepper, a very big avocado and some fresh herbs. So, vietnamese rice paper rolls it is. Or a twist on them at least.

These look really tricky, but really they’re very simple. Rolling them is a little fiddly and you may lose the first couple through practice but once you get the hang of it you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about! I usually make these with prawns. They’re perfect for lunch and great for a light evening snack. I don’t have prawns however, so I’m making a vegetarian version. I want to make a dip using the avocado so I’ve dug out a recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks – one of the Moosewood Cookbooks – Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. I bought my first Moosewood Cookbook (The Moosewood Cookbook) over 10 years ago now. I spent the summer in Dingle on the West Coast of Ireland and this was my culinary bible for the summer. It’s a vegetarian cookbook with very creative dishes which are quick, healthy & usually very easy. I have many of their cookbooks but the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics is one of my favourites. In it, the author, Mollie Katzen concentrates on vegetarian and seafood dishes cooked in their restaurant in Ithaca, NY. For this I chose the firey & healthy avocado and wasabi dressing.

This recipe is lactose free and coeliacs can eat this too as there’s no wheat. I didn’t add cucumber or carrot but if they were in my fridge I would have chopped them into matchstick shapes and added them. If you are inexperienced at rolling these use 2 rice paper wraps at a time as they won’t tear as easily. Otherwise use one. With one they look nicer and taste a little better I think. The dip is firey, I am a big wasabi fan. Continue reading

Hello! I’m Niamh (Knee-uv! It’s Irish). I love to cook and share my recipes here for you to recreate in your kitchen. Everything I make is packed with flavour and easy to recreate. I aim to be your friend in the kitchen and to bring the flavours of the world to you. Come cook with me!